I think we’re getting a new car

I’d like to–firstly–apologize to Den­ny and his new bride, Aprille. You see, Den­ny bought a Volk­swa­gen Pas­sat a lit­tle bit after I bought one, and I like to think I had at least some hand in him choos­ing to go with it. And I think he’s been hap­py with it, and I know we’ve been pret­ty hap­py with ours (her name is Gre­ta) but I got­ta say, I don’t get the feel­ing that she’s a decade-last­ing kind of car. I mean, we’ve had her for five years now, and she’s served us pret­ty well (we’re going to rec­i­p­ro­cate with an expen­sive detail­ing and a cou­ple of new floor mats soon).

But.

We’re tak­ing the first step in our mul­ti-year car own­er­ship plan (I would be sur­prised to hear Tiffany call it a plan, but I like my Plans, so it’s a plan) that will result, even­tu­al­ly, in our own­ing a mini­van and a com­mut­ing car. Right now we have Julia (bless her 13-year-old E‑for-econ­o­my chas­sis!) and Gre­ta. Julia feels like–and dri­ves like–a go cart, albeit a very much loved one. And Gre­ta has reached midlife.

We need to buy our com­muter vehi­cle. Gre­ta will con­tin­ue to serve until we grad­u­ate to a mini­van, and Julia, bless her again, will be sold off to a nice fam­i­ly in the coun­try where she will get milk and cook­ies for the rest of her days. Right, Mom­my?

We’re not get­ting a Volk­swa­gen. I love how Gre­ta dri­ves, and I love the tur­bo in her engine. I don’t like how often we took her in dur­ing her two years of war­ran­ty. I don’t like only two years of war­ran­ty. I don’t like how we had sen­sor mal­func­tions (STOPSTOPSTOPTHECAR. DONOTDRIVEFURTHER! Oh, wait, just a mal­func­tion. So sor­ry.). I don’t like how expen­sive she was for the qual­i­ty I feel we got out of her.

Nope. We’re (prob­a­bly) get­ting a Prius. Yes, a Toy­ota Prius. We snagged first dibs on a Sal­sa Red Prius already on the boat on its way to Nebras­ka. Small? Not real­ly. Sporty? Well, it’s not slug­gish. Inex­pen­sive? Um… no. But good gas mileage? Indeed. (EPA est­mates 51 city / 60 high­way / 55 over­all! though online user reports sug­gest that is a lit­tle exag­ger­at­ed… more like 44 over­all) Fun to dri­ve? By all accounts, it most cer­tain­ly is… at least with all the gad­gets. Flairif­ic? What would you call Sal­sa Red?

So. It arrives towards the end of the month, maybe the begin­ning of Sep­tem­ber. We test dri­ve it. If we like it, she’s ours. If we don’t, we back out, and go take a look at a Maz­da 3.

I’m just a lit­tle excit­ed.

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Danny

My name is Danny, and I grew up living overseas, but have settled in Kansas, where it turns out some of my family started, back when. I am helping to raise my own family, and hoping to be proud of what I've done when it's all over.
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